Traditions of the North American Indians Volume III Part 4

THE DAUGHTERS OF THE SUN.

In the southern part of the lands which were once occupied by the Creeks, the Walkullas, and other tribes of Indians, lies the marsh Ouaquaphenogan. On one side of it is the river Flint; on the other, the Oakmulgee. This marsh is of very great extent, so great that it takes several moons to travel around it. In the wet season, and when the great rains of the southern sky are falling upon the earth, the whole surface of this marsh appears a vast lake. It is interspersed here and there with large islands and knolls of rich land, one of which, the largest island, situated in the centre of the lake, the present generation of Creeks represent to be a most blissful spot of earth. They term this little island, also, Ouaquaphenogan, and relate the following tradition of its discovery, which I will repeat to my brother.

Once upon a time, many ages ago, there were four young hunters in the nation of the Creeks, and these four young hunters upon the morning of a beautiful day in summer took their hunting spears, and their bows and arrows, and repaired to the forest. The hunting-ground to which they directed their steps lay upon the skirt of this marsh. It was the dry season of the year, and the surface of the lake was again a bog or mora.s.s. The four hunters, finding a narrow and crooked path, leading over the waste from the high grounds above the mora.s.s, determined, with a view to ascertain if no kind of game dwelt upon it, to thread this path for a short distance, but by no means to venture so far as to lose sight of the beacons which should guide their feet back to their village. They knew that very many hunters had been lost on this marsh, that there were many who had lived to tell the story of their bewilderment, and many who, never having returned from the chace, could only be supposed to have been tempted to the fatal mora.s.s, and perished in its mazes. Thus, armed with the knowledge of what had happened to many, and was supposed to have happened to more, the hunters ventured into the narrow and crooked path, which led to the island Ouaquaphenogan, in the lake of the same name.

The four hunters had not walked far, when one of them said to another, "Where are the hills which glitter in the morning sun, behind the cabins of our fathers?" The other answered, "I see them not, nor do I know which way they should be sought for. Deep fogs obscure the earth, and hide the sun from our eyes; the signs are wanting which should direct our feet in the path of our return; for the moss grows equally on every side of the tree; the waters lie dead, and sleeping, and stagnant, so that no one may gather from their flow a knowledge of his path; it is not the hour of the day for the Hunter's Star to shine upon the eyes of our judgment; no wind stirs to inform us whether it comes from the flowery land of the South, or the cold hills of the North--how then can I a.s.sist my bewildered brothers, who am myself bewildered? I see not whence we came, I know not where we are; I only know this--that we have ventured into a narrow and crooked path in the Lake Ouaquaphenogan, and are lost, as many of our nation have been before, in the intricate mazes into which it is death to venture." So concluded the young hunter.

The four bewildered hunters still continued their endeavours to retrace their path, but without success. Still more dark and dismal grew those mazes--more wet and miry the mora.s.s. Night came, but it brought no stars to enable them to find their road back to their dwellings, nor south nor north winds were abroad to direct their steps--the waters were still stagnant, and still did moss grow upon every side of the tree. No bird flew by, to direct by the course of his flight to his roosting-place, or to the nest of his beloved, on the dry hills beyond the waste--no plaint of animals, which love not the water or damp grounds, was heard in the distance. They knew no better than a child of the last moon the path which should lead them back to safety.

While they were wandering about in the mazes of the swamp, one said to another, "I hear the sound of voices." Listening, they were soon able to distinguish the sounds of music and merriment proceeding from a glade at a short distance, in the direction of the little path upon which they were entering. Pursuing that path, they soon came to a little knoll of high and rich land. Nothing could be more beautiful than the appearance of this little spot. Here and there were clumps of trees, covered with fruit in every stage of its growth, and blossoms scenting the air with their fragrance. The earth was covered with a robe of flowers; birds were singing on the boughs, and hopping about on the twigs, filling the air with sweet melody, and little rills were rattling away over the gentle slopes. Upon one side of the knoll lay a clear lake, in which swans, white as the lily, were disporting themselves, and the red-headed, and the green-winged duck, and many other beautiful feathered creatures. But the most beautiful objects remain to be painted. These were four tall and slender maidens, beautiful as the flower-clad trees and blossom-crowned hills of their own island, and sweet as the breath of a lemon-tree. Their eyes shone as bright as the beams of the morning sun; bright locks of surpa.s.sing beauty cl.u.s.tered around their lovely brows; and their garments were woven of many colours as brilliant as the rainbow. Their bosoms swelled like the heavings of the billows on a little lake, when it is but slightly stirred by the breezes of spring. Their step--what can be compared to it? A bird skimming the fields; a wind slightly stirring the bushes; an antelope bounding over a mountain crag; a deer a little alarmed at the whoop of the hunter. Beautiful creatures! The Great Spirit never formed any thing, not even the trees, nor the flowers of spring, nor the field of ripe grain, nor the sun of whom those four maidens were sisters, so beautiful as they were.

They came--these four beautiful maidens--to the four bewildered travellers, whom they addressed thus, and their voice was sweeter than the music of the song-sparrow--"Who are ye?" The hunters replied that they were men of the Creek-nation who had ventured into the marsh Ouaquaphenogan, and were bewildered in its inextricable mazes. Two days, they said, they had been without food; they were faint and weary, and demanded refreshments, such as they would have given, had a hungry traveller come to their door, and said, "Food I have none, give me or I faint." The beautiful maidens replied, that the men of their nation, having long ages ago been driven with much bloodshed into the inaccessible fastnesses of the island Ouaquaphenogan, in the lake of the same name, by the ancestors of the present generation of Creeks, had retained so deeply in their bosoms the memory of their wrongs, that they were sure to inflict upon them most excruciating tortures, and to make them die a death of fire. Such, they said, would be the fate of the four bewildered hunters, should their fathers or brothers discover them now. They earnestly besought them to fly; but first, with that tender and compa.s.sionate nature which belongs to women when they see the other s.e.x in distress, they brought from a little cabin which stood near, covered with beautiful vines in blossom, abundance of provisions, besides oranges, dates, and other fruit, sweet, ripe, and tempting, as their own beautiful selves. These they spread out on the flowery earth, and invited the four hunters to partake. Placed each by the maiden of his choice, they fed upon the repast prepared by the fair hands of the daughters of the sun, the while drinking in the pa.s.sion of love from their large and l.u.s.trous eyes. Nor was the soft language of looks alone the medium of thought; words of the tongue were interchanged as sweet as those of the eyes. Wrought up at length to a phrenzy of pa.s.sion, and emboldened by the melting glances of the dove-eyed girls, the youthful hunters besought them to bless them with their love--to become the wives of their heart. Faint was the shake of the head, and scarcely heard the breathing of the "No," and cast meekly down upon the blue flowers at their feet the soft and tender eyes, which could not have looked up and kept their secret. At length, one of the maidens, the eldest sister--for they were sisters--began thus:

"Young and amiable strangers, it is proper that we tell you who we are, that you may think whether you will dare the danger, that will attend the union of one of our race with one of yours. We are born of mothers, and are the children of fathers, who are governed by the influences of the sun, even as tides obey the commands of their mistress the moon, and stars perform their round of service in the sky, at the command of the Master of all. Our disposition--the disposition of our race--is as variable as that of the winds upon which our great father acts. Ye behold him fiery at times--even so are we--a change comes over him, his beams grow mild and soft, dispensing genial warmth and gladness; ours, like his, also soften, and, though they cannot possess his power, yet they are fashioned on his pattern, and we in our kind moments bestow all the happiness we can upon those we love. At those moments, were it possible to fill all the earth with love, to make bush, tree, flower, man, beast, bird, utter the language of the soft pa.s.sion, and hill, dale, mountain, and valley, echo it, we would do it. Again do we change; and he that hath noted the quick obscuring of the sun in the Month of Buds, may estimate the variableness of our temper. Then tears fall from our eyes in torrents, as showers fall from a cloud, and as hastily as a mist is dissipated by a bright morning beam do smiles re-illumine our countenances, and our faces and hearts become filled with gladness. Tempest and fair weather, darkness and sunshine, are in us strangely blended. There is in our nature a strange jarring of the elements of being. Can ye take to your bosoms wives, who will afflict you with mutabilities as great, sudden, various, as those of the elements which surround you? Ye are pleased to think us beautiful, and it may be that we are; but remember that ye see us in one of our pleased, pleasant, and happy, moments.

Wait till an accident or misfortune happens, till want or calamity come, or contradiction ensue, or some of the crosses which belong to human life, as clouds and tempests to the const.i.tution of nature, a.s.sail us. But, if you think your love could survive the hurricanes which will visit your dwellings when we are stormy; if you can bear to see the lightnings of our eyes flashing wrath upon you, and our voices speaking thunder in your ears--I speak for myself and sisters--take us, and we will a.s.sure you of many moments of bright sunshine, many days of peace and happiness--uninterrupted sun, and cloudless skies."

The beautiful daughter of the sun, who spoke for herself and her sisters, concluded thus, and the eldest of the four hunters rose, and replied in these words:

"Beautiful maiden, that speakest for thyself and sisters, do not think that what thou hast said will affright us. I speak for myself and brothers--we will take you with all your faults, with the chance of the hurricanes and stormy weather, linked with the hope of the moments of bright sunshine and days of peace and happiness. Believe me, dove-eyed maidens, that the women of the lake Ouaquaphenogan, in the island of the same name, are not alone in their disposition to be stormy at times. It need not be told the men of the Creek nation, that a woman's face, of whatever country, may justly be likened to an April day, alternately shining and showering, and that her soul is like a morning in the Variable Moon, which one moment may be dressed in a thick mantle of clouds, and the next in a glittering robe of solar glory. It need not be told the son of my mother, that a woman's voice is sometimes the voice of a gentle rill, and at others, that of a cloud charged with the poison of the heated and rarefied air. Are not the Creeks men, and shall they be frightened by what is a mere momentary delirium? No. Having looked upon a wintry storm and a summer tempest, and seen the bright stars succeeding one, and the warm and cheering sun the other, we can listen with calmness--even with pleasure--to the tempest of a woman's anger, and survey, without trembling, or hiding, or running away, the lightnings of her wrath, because we know that after a storm comes a calm. We know that the sun shines most gloriously when his beams are first unveiled by the pa.s.sing away of the clouds which have obscured him; we know that a woman's face is most beautiful, when she has wiped the tears of anger from her cheek, and dressed it in smiles to win back the love which her folly has endangered. We will take you, beautiful creatures, subject to the becoming pa.s.sions of which you speak, filled with all the beautiful frenzies of woman's temper. We know that all women, whether they dwell among the Creeks, or in the island Ouaquaphenogan, in the lake of the same name, are alike in their dispositions. It hath long been taught, beautiful creatures, in our nation, and among all nations of which we have heard our fathers speak, that men should take them wives, but it is only now that we have recalled the maxim to our minds, it is only now that we acknowledge the wisdom of our teachers.

Now, if men chose those only whose tempers never varied, one, two, may be three, among all the sons of men would take wives; if one sought for a maiden with a never clouded brow and soul, it might become the labour of a whole nation to furnish moca.s.sins for the feet of one travelling in quest of the bride. Therefore we take you with all your faults, believing that you have them but in common with all your s.e.x, and with no greater portion than belongs to others. And we bind on your fair brows the flowers which betoken affection and constancy, and we place in your soft and beautiful hands the emblems of the charge we confide to them when we make you the wives of our bosoms."

So these four beautiful daughters of the sun became the affianced brides of the four bewildered Creek hunters.

"But," said the beautiful maidens to their lovers, "we have told you of the ferocity of our fathers and brothers, and of the hatred of our nation towards the descendants of the men who overthrew and ma.s.sacred our ancestors. We cannot expose you to the danger of their wrath; you must fly, but whithersoever that be, we will fly with you." So the four beautiful daughters of the sun left for ever the island Ouaquaphenogan, and the lake of the same name, and became the wives and mothers of hunters and warriors. They were at times very stormy in their tempers, but upon the whole not worse than other women. Their faces were at times those of April days, alternately shining and showery, but there were women in our nation, who were not at all akin to the sun, nor ever saw Ouaquaphenogan, that were as like them as if they had been sisters. Their eyes did, indeed, sometimes send out volleys of lightnings, and their tongues give forth heavy thunders, but neither were louder nor sharper than those of the women, who had for ages given the beam of the one and the music of the other to the men of the Creeks. And, if they did at times term their husbands "brutes," it was no more than other husbands had been called before.

And if they did, in the moment of a hurricane, drive their husbands from their fire-sides, they were by no means the first who had done so. Upon the whole, the four hunters had no particular reason to regret their bewilderment in the marsh Ouaquaphenogan.

THE MAIDEN AND THE BIRD.

It cannot be new to my pale-faced brother, for he has been told it often enough, that, besides the Great Master of Life, the red men of the forest worship a great mult.i.tude of spirits with whom they believe every part of the world to be peopled. According to our belief, a Manitou dwells upon every hill, and in every valley; in every open glade and dark mora.s.s; in the chambers of every cavern, and the heart of every rock; in every fountain, and watery depth, and running stream. These spirits dislike white men very much, because they are always intruding upon their quiet, robbing both hill and valley of their stately trees, breaking up the bosom of the earth, penetrating into every dark mora.s.s and cavern, and polluting, by some means or other, every fountain, and watery depth, and running stream. Indians do not wish to provoke them, and so try to propitiate them by innocent and unb.l.o.o.d.y offerings. We spread on the mountain tops, or hang on the cliffs, or lay on the shelves of the caves, or drop into the waters, wreaths of flowers, belts of wampum, cl.u.s.ters of the wild grape, shining ears of maize, and other gifts which attach them to us. When an Indian child is born, whether it is a man-child or woman-child, a spirit is immediately chosen to protect it, and its future life is expected to be prosperous or not as the guardian spirit is powerful and well-disposed to his charge, or weak, and undertakes his task of protection with reluctance.

The Little White Bear of the Iroquois was reposing by night in his cabin, on the banks of his own pleasant river, in the month of ripe berries, when he beheld, by the light of the moon, a forest-chief in all his pride enter the lodge. The step of the stranger was noiseless as the fall of snow, and of word or sound uttered he none. The chief of the Tuscaroras arose, and took down his sinewy bow, and drew from his quiver a sharp and barbed arrow--the figure faded away like a morning mist before the beams of the sun, and was gone from his eyes.

Tetontuaga woke his comrades, who lay scattered about in careless slumber--nothing had they seen, heard, or dreamed of. He lay down again, and, drawing his buffalo cloak closely around him, tried to close his eyes and ears, in oblivion of things, and to rein his fancy to look upon other shapes than those of air.

No sooner had he composed his limbs, and invoked the beneficent spirit who presides over sleep to grant him a slumber unvisited by hideous or frowning forms, than the shadowy warrior again arose and stood at his side. The Iroquois had now full opportunity to scan his form and features. Of gigantic frame he seemed, and his dress was of a texture and fashion such as the chief had never seen before--of an age and a nation none might guess. He was a half taller than the tallest man of the Five Nations, who are reputed the tallest of all the red men of the land, and his limbs, arms, legs, hands, feet, were of twice the ordinary size of an Iroquois warrior. His coal-black eyes were larger than the buffalo's, but they were l.u.s.treless as those of the dead; his teeth, large and of the colour of bones bleached by the sun and rain, chattered like the teeth of a man overpowered by the cold of the Bear-Moon. He wore over his shoulders a long robe of curiously dyed, or painted cloth, fastened at the throat by a piece of shining metal, and a fur cap made of the skin of an animal never seen by the Iroquois, above which rose a high plume of feathers of a bird unknown in Indian lands. The moca.s.sins were of one piece, reaching with no visible seam to the knees, and he wore upon his sinewy thighs garments shaped like those worn by the white stranger. His language, when he spoke, was a strange and uncouth language, yet it was understood by the Iroquois warrior, who felt, as he heard the strange sound, its meaning seize his brain as a strong man seizes and binds him who is weak and powerless. Wondrous were the things which the fierce phantom related to the startled warrior of the Iroquois. He spoke of the wars of the Allegewi, and of the torrents of blood that ran into the Michigan, and the Erie, and the Huron, and the River of the Mountains[A], and the Naemesi Sipu, discolouring their once clear, and cresting with red foam, their once calm and peaceful waters. He told how the men of the Allegewi were beaten and driven no one but the Great Being, and the Manitous, and the spirits in the Blessed Shades, knew whither, by the ancestors of the Iroquois, who came from the far north, across an arm of the Frozen Sea, encountered the Allegewi, the primitive inhabitants of the soil, who were entrenched behind the stupendous mounds which still remain, and drove them into perpetual banishment. He described the pigmy people, and the giant tribes whose graves and mounds might yet be seen, exciting the wonder of the curious, and bringing men even from the City of the Rock[B] to view them, to open them, and to put down their thoughts about them upon the fair white skin[C]. A wild and unnatural song of triumph, in a tone as hoa.r.s.e as the croakings of the raven or the bittern, burst from his lips, of the valiant exploits of his tribe, his own among the number, in times long since--when the oak tree now dying with age was a little child, and the huge rocks were within the strength of a full grown warrior to poise. He spoke of nations whose names till then had never reached the ears of the wondering Iroquois, and told of their loves, and their hatreds, and their forest warfare.

[Footnote A: The Hudson.]

[Footnote B: Quebec.]

[Footnote C: The Indians could not be persuaded at first that paper was any thing else than tanned leather.]

Then he changed the theme, and spoke of the land of souls, the bright region to which the spirits of the good retire when the body is to be changed to dust. He painted the pleasures which are the portion of its inhabitants, and told in the ears of the warrior what description of men were permitted to be received into it; what were the deeds which pleased and conciliated the Great Being, and what the crimes which shut the gates of the Bridge of Souls against the wanderer thither. He painted minutely the happy land appointed for the residence of the souls of the Iroquois--where the brave man's shade still pursues the forest herd, or clasps to his bosom the forms of the sunny-eyed maidens of his own clime; and the green and happy isles where the Huron lovers reside, and the frozen and verdureless heath appointed to the cowards of all the earth. When he had exhausted these subjects, he related to the warrior many traditions of the old time, tales of forest love, and of the valour of the men of ancient days. He continued to visit the lodge of the chief every night for the s.p.a.ce of a moon, entertaining him, with the same fixed and l.u.s.treless eye, and in the same hoa.r.s.e tone, with these old tales. The Little White Bear of the Iroquois locked up those things in the great store-house of his memory, and each day, when the sun returned to the earth, and with it the ghost of the ancient man had departed, he related to his wondering tribe the traditions poured into his ear by the phantom warrior. And this was the first.

The moon was shining brightly on tree and flower, on glade and river, on land and water; stars were twinkling, and the winds slept in the caverns of the earth, when a youth and a maiden--he, tall and straight as a forest tree; fierce as a panther to his enemies, but gentle as a kid to those he loved; she, little in stature as a sprout of a single season, but the mildest and most beautiful of all mortal things--came out of the forest. The horse upon whose back they had escaped from their enemies lay exhausted at the verge of the wood, and now they stood alone by the river of silver.

"Here rest thee, my beloved," said the youth, "we are safe. Our good steed has sped like an arrow through the thicket; our pursuers, my rival, thy father, thy brother, and all thy tribe, lie foiled and fainting far behind us. There is no longer footfall or shout in the wind; the voices of angry men, calling the Algonquin by names he never owned and whose ignominy he may not avenge, have long since expired on our ears like the voice of a dying cloud in the Moon of Thunder. Rest thee, my beloved!--as a young bird that is weary of flying reposes on the bough of a tree till its faintness has pa.s.sed away, so must thou lie down on the green and verdant bank till thy strength returns. I go to yonder river, to seek a bark to bear us away to the lands of my nation, and to my pleasant cabin by the stream where I first drew breath." And he rose to go.

"Oh leave me not!" cried the maiden, her soft cheek bedewed with tears, and deep sighs proceeding from her oppressed heart. "When thou art away, I tremble with terror. When I see not the light of thine eyes, I am filled with dismay. My mother comes, in her anger, to chide me, and she does not spare; my stern brother storms like the winter's tempest; my sire rages and threatens; and then, like the panther that springs across the path of the lone hunter, comes thy hated rival, to oppress me with the tale of his love and the boast of his success."

"Nay, thou art dreaming, my beloved," said the young warrior. "If fancy must sway thee, let thy visions be tinted with the cheerful ray of hope. There is no peril near thee, and soon will I bear my beautiful bride to the lands of my nation, and to my pleasant cabin beside the beautiful river where I first drew my breath."

So saying, he sprung lightly to the sh.o.r.e, and was lost to her sight.

At the moment of his disappearance, a cloud pa.s.sed over the face of the bright moon, obscuring her blessed light. The maiden, deeming it an inauspicious omen, sat down upon the green bank, and, leaning her head upon her hand, suffered the tears to stream through her slender fingers. But vain was the presage--idle were her fears. The cloud has pa.s.sed away from the face of the pale orb, and lo! there is her lover.

He comes with a joyous step and a laughing eye, as though he had been successful in his search for the further means of flight. Cheer up, Mekaia[A]; it is indeed thy Moscharr[B].

[Footnote A: The star flower.]

[Footnote B: The mountain plant.]

"Now haste, my beloved one," said the Mountain Plant. "I have found the object of my search. Here is a canoe, and soon shall it convey my Star-flower over the rapid tide. Soon will my little bark shoot over the noisy current, and I and my beloved be altogether beyond the power of our pursuers."

So saying, he drew the unreluctant maiden swiftly forward. They gained the sh.o.r.e, placed themselves in the canoe, and committed it to the current. With her hand clasped in his, her head resting softly upon his shoulder, while his arm fondly encircled her slender waist, they glided down the rapid River of the Mountains. No sail was raised to catch the breeze; no oar was used to impel them through the water; yet, ere the maiden had time to breathe, the light canoe was gliding, rapid as thought, down the mid-waves of the current. Then the maiden spoke.

"Now say, O Moscharr, whither is it you are guiding the bark? Mark you not, love, how we are gliding down the stream towards the dreadful Oniagarah?"

"Be calm, my Mekaia," answered the lover, "I am but guiding you to yonder strand, upon which the current sets full and strong. Be calm, my Mekaia, we are safe."

The maiden held her tongue, for was she not with him she loved? Away then, away they went, and still onward, while faster, and fleeter, and more boisterous, the foaming waters flowed around them, and less distant every moment seemed the dreadful cataract. Its roar was like that of an approaching cloud from which thunders are issuing. Again the timid maiden addressed her lover:

"Now tell me, O Moscharr, whither is it you are guiding the bark? See, the sh.o.r.e is more distant, and hark! what awful noise is that which strikes mine ear from out of the black curtain ahead of us? It cannot be the thunders, for there is no cloud; it cannot be the voice of the Great Spirit, for he is the friend of the Ottawa girl."

"Be calm, my Mekaia," answered the lover, "there is no danger; it is thy lover that guides the bark, and he will be careful of the flower of the forest maidens. I see the sh.o.r.e--I see the rock--and whenever I will I can guide to either."

Away then, away goes their light bark, and still they speed onward with the swiftness of an arrow from a well drawn bow. The tall dark forests that rose above their starting-place are fast receding from view, and hark! pealing like the thunders of heaven, the roar of the mighty cataract, to come within whose influence is instant destruction.

"Now tell me, O Moscharr, what dreadful sound is that which breaks in so loud and angry a tone upon my ear from out of the black curtain?"

demanded the maiden.

"It is the surge breaking on the sandy sh.o.r.e, or the night winds rushing through the forest," answered he.

"And tell me what are those lifting their white heads before us, as the snow, which has fallen in a calm, is swept about by the whirlwind which follows it?"

"Billows breaking on the shoals that surround yon little island."

Away then, away goes their little bark, dashing among the wild waves, like a leaf caught up into air by the summer whirlwind, till all at once burst upon the horror-stricken maiden, in their most tremendous and appalling aspect, the waters of the far-famed, the wondrous Oniagarah. See the white sheet of foam which rises in spray, mocking the soaring of the bird of morning. "It is only the Great Spirit that can save us now!" exclaimed the frantic maiden. "Lo, my Moscharr, we hasten to the land of souls!"

"Not the Great Spirit himself, did he will it, could save us,"

answered the lover in a tone which seemed to be that of impiety.

"Were he here himself, with all the Manitous of the earth, and the air, and the flood, and the fire, gathered together from mountain, and valley, and wood, and prairie, he could not save us. Together, Mekaia, we shall sleep in the stormy cataract."

The maiden heard the dreadful words in silence. But even then she showed the depth of her affection. The love of a woman endures through all changes; she shrinks not at death, so the beloved one be at her side. When the beauteous flower of the forest saw her fate approaching, and so near, she sank into the arms of her Moscharr, as though it were pleasanter to die there than elsewhere; and a soft smile, for she smiled even in that dread moment, told that she was most happy to die, if she could die on the breast of him she loved.